Cricket Communications

The following is a transcription of a certified letter, RRR, I sent to Ms. Linda Wokoun,Senior V.P Marketing, Customer Care of Cricket Communications, Inc. on May 22 2012.

A week or so later, I received the receipt from the deliverd letter. This was the ONLY reply I ever received from this company. It boggles the mind how utterly indifferent this company is to their own dissatisfied customers. Frankly, they deserve to be put out of business as they appear genuinely insensitive to telecommunication customer needs and are willing to risk enourmous pulic embarrasment in the pursuit of profit.

I am writing regarding a recent terrible experience at one of your Houston Cricket stores which has caused me to consider whether your company values loyal customers and serves as a lesson in how to not retain a loyal customer. I feel completely deceived, and am now reviewing your competitor’s service, in hopes that they appreciate a loyal customer. Allow me to elaborate.

I renewed my service with Cricket in August of last year by purchasing a new phone and monthly service, which served me well. In January of this year, I also purchased a Cricket router and internet services because I am a junior at University of Houston. Nine months later, the phone I purchased (a Motorola Flip phone,) died. On 11 April of this year, I took it to a nearby Cricket store located at 5702 Bellaire Blvd. in Houston, hoping for a repair. I was very impressed with what appeared to be a high level of professionalism when I entered the store; this impression did not last, as you will see. I was greeted by “Mohsan” the store’s manager, who quickly claimed my phone was not serviceable and proceeded to show me new models. Believing him, I selected a Huawei Pillar, which Mohsan eagerly removed from its packaging and set up, transferring, (for a $15.00 fee,) all my data from my old phone. He was quick to point out that an excellent benefit of my new phone was that all I needed was the unit’s USB cable/charger to download photos from my phone to my laptop. This, a few days later I discovered, was electronically impossible without a memory card. I also discovered that, unlike my previous phone, the signal strength was almost non-existent in certain locations. I had good signal strength on the second floor of my townhouse, for example, but not on the ground floor. The signal strength was likewise spotty when traveling, and at other locations. This made conversations very frustrating.

On the 4th of this month, Mohsan left me a VM asking how the phone was, which I thought was good follow-up on his part. However, on the 10th, I returned to the same store to visit Mohsan hoping he could resolve the weak signal and photo issue. I had taken several images but was unable to retrieve them, using the phone charger, as Mohsan had indicated.

I entered the store and found Mohsan not available, and so spoke with his assistant “Zakie” to whom I explained in detail the issue, making it clear about the weak signal and photo issue, and who had sold me the phone.. Zakie assured me I needed an accessory -- a memory card -- which I purchased and Zakie installed. I brought along my laptop and was successful in using the software and retrieving the photos. As for the signal issue, Zakie assured me that all I needed to do was contact Cricket customer service and have them “reset my account.”

Later that same day, I contacted CS, speaking with a young female named “Sarah, who very carefully gave me scripted answers – using my name, over and over, as if I was 6 years old -- and who rather mindlessly tried to accuse my home’s structure for the signal issue. I assured her that I had friends and neighbors who visited, and who owned Cricket phones and who had NO signal issues when downstairs in my home. Nevertheless, Sarah reset my account but assured me it would have no effect. Needless to say, she was correct.

After hanging up with Sarah, I contacted Zakie immediately to explain what had happened. He replied, “That’s okay, I have a solution for that.” He said I could swap out the phone and if that didn’t work we could try another model. I explained that Mohsan had sold me the phone and that I would like to see him. Zakie explain that both he and Mohsan would be available Monday, the 14th, and that I should stop by then. I did exactly that.

I was greeted as I entered and spoke with Zakie who remembered me, but explained that Moshan had been “transferred” to another location. At this point I was eager to swap out the phone. Zakie, however, passed me to another salesperson to whom I had to recite my entire ordeal from the beginning. As I was doing so, Zakie asked if I had the original packaging for my current phone. I explained I did not, to which he quickly replied by citing Cricket policy regarding returns and exchanges. I was completely incensed at that point and argued that his manager had sold me a defective phone, and should have known it had a weak signal, and that HE had discarded the packaging when he transferred the service. Zakie refused to remedy the situation as he had indicated he would, leaving me completely dissatisfied, and feeling deceived.

In conclusion, I must say that I have never experienced such customer neglect. Not only was I lied to about what the phone could do by the 1st salesperson, he likewise vanished when I was expected to return; the 2nd salesperson not only refused to honor the solution he himself proposed, (despite that his colleague was the reason I no longer had the packaging.) but stood ridiculously firm on a silly company packaging policy. I find, using a packaging policy as a rationale to refuse decent customer service, not merely insulting, but an excellent formula to drive out a good customer. Likewise, I find it bizarre that, as a store manager, Mohsan had so little product knowledge that he thought a phone charger was an electronic substitute for a memory card; I am particularly insulted at the notion that all that stood between me and a decent working phone was a salesperson hell-bent on upholding Cricket corporate policy. Perhaps, as the company’s VP of customer relations, you can see how basic common decency, had Zakie bothered to applied it, would have saved the day.

Needless to say, I do not plan to get another Cricket phone, and will very likely change service providers in the not-too-distant future. Perhaps this very negative experience may serve as a lesson in how to ruin a customer’s loyalty and stick him with a semi-operating phone while gouging him. (It’s not the money; it’s that I should have been told the phone needed a memory card up front.) In the company for which I work, common decency ALWAYS trumps policy; and we have world-wide esteem as a result.

I have no expectation that the salespeople, Zakie and Mohsan who perpetrated this fraud upon me will try to resolve the issue which has left me in the unenviable position of having to purchase a new working phone from another vendor. As you can imagine, this leaves me with an indelible negative impression of Cricket Communications, Inc., and their sales tactics. An impression I will certainly share with others.

Every consumer of goods and services can leave on the site USACONSUMERCOMPLAINTS.COM a complaint, review, report, a claim or negative feedback on the person, firm, company, shop, service or web-based project, whose actions left this consumer dissatisfied.